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Forty years of mutual understanding between the US and China over globalisation came to an abrupt end last week. America’s lurch towards protectionism and China’s swing towards one-man rule dealt a double blow to settled assumptions about Washington’s commitment to free trade, on one hand, and Beijing’s journey towards political liberalisation, on the other.

President Donald Trump declared that “trade wars are good and easy to win”. But, notes Gideon Rachman in his latest column, that remark showed a breezy, and potentially fatal, indifference to the dangers of unleashing a trade war with the Chinese.

Mr Trump and his opposite number Xi Jinping are both nationalists, ready to stoke patriotic grievances among their respective domestic audiences. The combination, Gideon suggests, could be explosive.

Taming capitalism: For some time now, the fortunes of social democratic parties in Europe have been in the doldrums. Even the centre-left in the Scandinavian countries, where the social contract has always seemed most secure, have felt the breath of populist insurgents on their necks. Mette Frederiksen, leader of Denmark’s Social Democrats, argues that the rise of populism is rooted in a genuine sense of insecurity. If social democracy is to fulfill its historic mission of taming capitalism, it must acknowledge that.

Biased bots: Everyone seems to be worrying about robots taking our jobs. But, writes Kriti Sharma, artificial intelligence poses a more pressing danger: bias — particularly where gender and ethnic stereotyping are concerned. The culture of AI research breeds homogeneity, Kriti argues, and that’s a serious problem. But it’s one that those working in technology can solve, while there’s still time.

Setting standards: UK regulators have done much since the collapse of Northern Rock 10 years ago to ensure that bank failures on that scale won’t happen again. But, argues Brendan Barber, the Libor rate-rigging scandal showed that regulation by itself is not enough. Bankers need to do more themselves to ensure that their industry meets the highest professional standards.

What you’ve been saying

Most of the problems facing the UK have nothing to do with Brexit — educational inequality, failing utility markets, poor infrastructure, low productivity, a non-functioning housing market. Fixing these with an economy weakened by being outside Europe will be even more difficult. The bet, however, that many people are innately taking is that only by delivering a huge shock to the establishment will anything be done about these problems. The challenge for the world of the FT is what answers can be given without resorting to the nationalisation favoured by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Producing more articles on why Brexit is not a good idea will not work, as the message it sends out is: “Let us keep to the system that has produced the inequality we are witnessing today.”

I have never understood the refusal of the USA government to talk to the North Korean government. Likewise I do not understand why South Korean governments kow-tow to the USA government with regard to discussions with the North Korean government. Mr Trump is the last USA official who should be in discussions with North Koreans, but that is the situation that the USA finds itself in, so the world will see if anything positive materialises.

I fail to understand why people use Google other than through laziness or ignorance — there are many search engines that do not follow your browser searches/IP address and so on as part of their USP, and also thus do not annoy you with targeted ads. I use the delightfully named DuckDuckGo.